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Complete 2017 numbers for violent offenses and property crime in San Francisco.

Media: Ted Andersen, SFGATE

A 55-year-old real estate agent was held up at gunpoint and robbed during an open house on a privately owned street in San Francisco’s Bayview Heights neighborhood last weekend, the San Francisco Police Department said this week.

The woman was showing a home on the 200 block of Pelican Cove on Saturday afternoon when the robbery occurred, police said.

That stretch of Pelican Cove is one of 264 privately owned street segments in San Francisco.

The victim was standing in the kitchen of the home that she planned to show, shortly before 2:30 p.m., when she heard footsteps inside the house, according to police.

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2017 SF crime stats

2017 SF crime stats

Photo: Ted Andersen

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

San Francisco Police Dept. year-end crime statistics for 2017. (Uniform Crime Reports — UCR)

Photo: San Francisco Police Dept./ Operations Bureau, Crime Analysis Unit

Assuming the noise was coming from potential buyers there to tour the property, she went to greet them, only to encounter the three suspects, one of them armed with a gun, police reported.

ALSO: Search is on for missing skier from the Bay Area

They demanded money, police said, gesturing at her purse with the gun until she emptied her wallet of cash, then demanded more and started rifling through the bag.

But they were interrupted by a ring of the doorbell and fled, piling into a blue-silver BMW and driving away from the scene, according to police. The incident is under investigation, and no detailed description of the suspects has been released.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Real-estate-agent-held-up-at-gunpoint-Bayview-12761649.php

Cindy Chau seemed to have it made. She paid $1,200 a month for a rent-controlled, one bedroom apartment in San Francisco — a city where tenants regularly shell out nearly three times that.

But Chau alleges living there came with a hidden cost not spelled out in any lease — a property manager who bombarded her with sexual text messages and persistent come-ons, once propositioning her in her own home while he was supposed to be fixing her sink.

“I just couldn’t go back to living there,” Chau said. “I didn’t feel safe.”

While the #MeToo movement has shed light on workplace sexual harassment in California’s technology sector, entertainment industry, politics and beyond, little attention is paid to the same abuses between landlords and tenants. But tenants-rights lawyers say the harassment Bay Area women are reporting — from unwanted touching to offers of free rent in exchange for sex — is particularly chilling because it involves someone with keys to the victim’s home and the power to take that home away. And with local rent prices soaring, many women can’t put an end to the harassment by moving out, because they can’t afford to live anywhere else.

“It’s a huge problem everywhere,” said Oakland-based attorney Leslie Levy, who represents plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases, “particularly striking low-income tenants, women who are on Section 8 housing, immigrant women — because they are the most vulnerable, and they can’t just up and move.”

Experts say it’s difficult to tell how widespread landlord-tenant sexual harassment is because tenants often don’t report it and research on the subject is lacking. But it’s an issue that’s caught the attention of the nation’s highest civil rights enforcers — in October the Department of Justice launched a pilot program to target sexual harassment in housing, starting in Washington D.C. and western Virginia.

Of the housing complaints filed in California in 2016, 2 percent, or 22 out of 1,006, involved sexual harassment, according to the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing. But experts say that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“I think it’s safe to say this is a lot more common than the numbers reveal,” said Kevin Kish, director of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Chau, a 39-year-old contractor for Facebook, says she lived for nine years without issue in her top-floor apartment in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff neighborhood, blocks from the Legion of Honor. Then in 2015 Gregg Molyneaux, her landlords’ son and new property manager, moved into the unit below hers.

Molyneaux, who was in his 60s, began harassing her soon after, Chau alleges in a September lawsuit she filed against him and his parents in San Francisco County Superior Court, for claims including sexual harassment, wrongful eviction, violating San Francisco’s rent ordinance and breach of warranty. In frequent text messages, he called her “hot stuff” and “sexy,” and asked to spend “private time” with her in her apartment, according to copies of the messages reviewed by this news organization.

Once, while he was in her apartment to fix a clogged sink and broken stove, Molyneaux told Chau he’d like to come up and have sex with her sometime, according to the lawsuit. On another occasion, after shaking her hand, he pulled her in close as if for a kiss, Chau claims.

In an interview, Molyneaux denied trying to kiss Chau but acknowledged sending her provocative text messages and propositioning her in her apartment.

“I admit, as a manager I should not be that forward with one of the tenants,” he said. “And I did not realize that.”

Molyneaux and his parents threatened to evict Chau last year because she stopped paying rent, he said, but she ultimately moved out voluntarily. In her lawsuit, Chau counters she was forced out as retaliation for refusing Molyneaux’s advances and complaining about ongoing maintenance issues.

Chau says she tried to ignore Molyneaux’s come-ons, asking him to refrain from making inappropriate comments and even suggesting he start a Tinder profile, but nothing worked. So she began timing when she left her apartment to avoid running into him. But she felt uncomfortable even while inside her apartment, knowing he could hear her every footstep from the floor below.

Chau says she was hesitant to complain to her landlords, both of whom were in their 90s, because she feared they might kick her out, and she worried she couldn’t afford a market-rate apartment.

“I needed a place to stay, and rent was affordable,” Chau said, “and I didn’t know what else to do.”

That’s a common mindset among Bay Area tenants facing harassment in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets, said Jacqueline Ravenscroft, who represents Chau and two other local tenants suing different landlords for sexual harassment.

“Tenants basically are captive because they can’t afford to move out,” Ravenscroft said.

The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is $3,239, according to RentCafe. It’s $2,367 in San Jose, and $2,226 in Oakland.

Chau says she eventually did complain to her landlords about the harassment and nothing changed. She moved out in July and now rents a room in a house on the Daly City border where she pays $400 more. 

Molyneaux says he’s become more careful about how he interacts with his tenants. He blames his behavior with Chau in part on changing times.

“The world has changed in 30 years — being able to go up to a woman, ‘hello beautiful,’ ‘hello sexy’ … nowadays that’s considered sexual harassment,” he said.

It’s illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants based on sex — which includes subjecting them to sexual harassment — under the federal Fair Housing Act and the state Fair Employment and Housing Act. Victims can complain to Bay Area nonprofits such as Project Sentinel, which investigates housing discrimination claims, report the behavior to HUD or the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing or file a lawsuit for monetary damages. But lawyers say tenants often don’t know their legal options.

When 49-year-old Tiffani Tanaka started having problems with the plumbing in her rent-controlled, San Francisco studio in 2016, her landlords sent their son-in-law, Bony Sosa, who lived next door. Soon Sosa was making excuses to come into Tanaka’s apartment on a regular basis, Tanaka said in a February lawsuit she filed against him and her landlords in San Francisco Superior Court. The suit includes claims of sexual harassment, trespassing, negligence and violating San Francisco’s Rent Ordinance. He regularly called her “Miss Beautiful,” professed his love for her in a hand-written letter, sent her as many as 25 text messages a week and once walked in on her changing after he entered her apartment unannounced, she said.

“It got really, really uncomfortable,” Tanaka said.

Sosa did not respond to calls seeking comment. A lawyer has not yet entered an appearance in the case on his behalf.

Tanaka moved out in October after she says maintenance issues in the apartment came to a head — including a sewage leak that filled her apartment with an odor so noxious it made her nauseated and dizzy — and her landlords pressured her to leave.

In a similar story, Bertha, a mother of three young boys, says she stopped feeling safe in her Concord apartment after the property manager persistently came onto her, touched her without consent, offered free rent in exchange for sex and threatened to evict her if she refused his advances.

In a lawsuit filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court in December, Bertha accused the property manager of going into her bedroom when she wasn’t home, rifling through her underwear drawer and leaving her bras scattered on the floor. The suit includes claims of sexual harassment, negligence, unfair business practices and trespassing.

Bertha, a Mexican immigrant who moved into the one-bedroom apartment in 2013, asked that her last name not be used because she still lives there and can’t afford to move out.

The property manager’s lawyer did not answer calls or emails seeking comment.

“I was afraid, and I felt like I didn’t have any privacy,” Bertha said in Spanish. Locking her door didn’t make her feel safer.

“He has a key,” she said, “and could enter anytime he wanted.”

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/16/sexually-harassed-in-their-homes-when-renters-accuse-landlords-exploitation/

WALNUT CREEK — A high-profile office complex in Walnut Creek has been bought for a top price, a fresh indicator of a robust Bay Area economy.

Growers Square, which contains three office buildings that together total 195,000 square feet, traded hands on Thursday. The office complex is located at 1646 through 1676 California Avenue and is a short distance from the Walnut Creek BART station and the iconic, high-end Broadway Plaza shopping center.

“Walnut Creek has experienced a renaissance that has brought high-end restaurants, shopping and nightlife to the downtown core, making it one of the Bay Area’s true 24-hour cities,” said Steven Golubchik, a vice chairman with Newmark Knight Frank, a commercial realty brokerage that arranged the transaction. “The property’s location at the heart of this revival was an added benefit to the buyer.”

Rockwood Capital, a San Francisco-based real estate investment firm, was the buyer and Invesco, an investment management firm, was the seller, according to Newmark Knight Frank.

Growers Square’s tenants include John Muir/Mt Diablo Health System, Pacific Coast Bankers Bancshares and BKF Engineers, said Grant Lammersen, a vice chairman with Newmark Knight Frank.

The price, according to Rockwood Capital director Beau Baiocchi, was approximately $88 million, or $450 a square foot. That’s deemed to be a high value for a suburban office market in the East Bay.

“This shows how strong the economy is in the Bay Area,” said Edward Del Beccaro, a senior managing director with Transwestern, a commercial realty brokerage.

The deal also means office tenants can expect higher rents in downtown Walnut Creek, according to Del Beccaro.

“Growers Square is very walkable to BART and it’s very walkable to the downtown amenities,” Del Beccaro said.

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/15/growers-square-office-complex-bought-amid-hot-walnut-creek-market/

A real estate analytics firm has some good news for Bay Area landlords — and bad news for tenants: Rents began rising again last year after a brief “cooling off period” in late 2016.

“The Bay Area region should register one of its best rent performances since at least mid-2016,” the Texas real estate analytics firm RealPage wrote in a new report for the real estate industry.

In a trend likely to fuel an already supercharged fight over rent control in California, landlords in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland began raising asking prices again last spring and continued to increase rents in lease renewals for existing tenants. Monthly lease transaction data show “improved momentum” for apartment operators and investors, according to the report, echoing predictions of an upswing last month by the real estate data firm Yardi Matrix.

But for tenants unable to keep up with escalating rents, the conditions feel anything but improved.

“It’s totally backwards,” said Charitie Bolling-Tosuner, a third-generation San Franciscan whose family faces eviction from the two-bedroom Bayview area rental house they have lived in for more than a dozen years — and once hoped to buy — because they can’t afford the $5,700 rent. Bolling-Tosuner is a member of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, one of the groups behind the rent control ballot initiative.

“For us, for people who actually work small-paying jobs and are trying to work here in the city, it’s hard for us,” she said.

San Jose is leading the nation in rent hikes, with a jaw-dropping 52.4 percent increase since 2010, according to the firm. Oakland and San Francisco were close behind, with increases of 51.1 percent and 48.6 percent, respectively, during that time period. The report found that the current uptick will be more modest than in previous years, but that low unemployment and continued job growth will keep rents high.

Rent for an average one-bedroom apartment costs $2,460 in the San Jose metropolitan area, $3,400 in San Francisco, and $2,100 in Oakland, according to a recent analysis by the real estate website Zumper.

California lawmakers and pro-housing activist groups have been pushing for more housing development as a way to shore up supply and lower the costs for renters. But the new inventory — while double the Bay Area’s average rate in recent years — is not expected to be great enough to have much of an effect on the market, RealPage concluded.

Meanwhile, rent-control proponents are gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative to repeal Costa Hawkins, a statewide law banning certain types of local rent control, such as price controls for condominiums, single-family rentals and apartments built after 1995, when the law was passed.

Democratic lawmakers have also proposed bills this year to expand renter protections, such as giving tenants more time to challenge evictions and creating a statewide law establishing a set of valid reasons that can be used to evict tenants.

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/15/sjm-l-renthike-0316/

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Finding a Bay Area home for less than $1 million is harder than ever, but if you have $3 million to spend, you could have better luck: Sales of such luxury homes doubled across the region in February, compared to the previous year, according to an analysis by Pacific Union.

Meanwhile, the number of Silicon Valley homes selling for $2 million to $3 million grew by 33 percent from the previous February, and sales of homes for $1 million to $2 million increased by 30 percent.

“I must admit, coming into the year, I didn’t expect to see as much appreciation as we’ve seen so far,” said Selma Hepp, an economist for the real estate firm based in San Francisco.

Hepp attributes the uptick in luxury home sales to continued job growth and low inventory caused by decades of building too little. It’s also possible, she said, that recent stock market volatility caused some investors to put their money in the Bay Area housing market instead.

But none of this is good for first-time home buyers with budgets in the mere six figures. The inventory of homes under $1 million has been drastically dwindling over the years, and in February the number of sales in that price range shrank another 15 percent across the Bay Area.

Sales of homes for under $1 million dropped by 8 percent in Contra Costa County; 16 percent in Alameda County; 34 percent in Santa Clara County and a staggering 47 percent in San Mateo County from February 2017 to this past February, according to the report.

“On one hand we are fortunate that the economic growth has been so strong,” Hepp said, “but the lack of affordability for people who have not risen with the same wave of economic growth — where are they going to go?”

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/14/sjm-l-realestate-0314/